Peter Silas Pasqua: NFL Draft is hit or miss

Friday

Apr 24, 2009 at 12:01 AMApr 24, 2009 at 2:59 AM

The National Football League Draft is this weekend. For the past three months, team scouts have scrutinized players every which way possible to decide whether or not they are worthy of receiving a contract.

Peter Silas Pasqua

The National Football League Draft is this weekend. For the past three months, team scouts have scrutinized players every which way possible to decide whether or not they are worthy of receiving a contract.

Yet no matter how much studies are done on a player about his quickness, character and strength, the fact of the matter is, no one knows who will become a “name” in the league and who will be sitting at home watching the games next season.

The discussion of late has Georgia’s Matthew Stafford going to the hapless Detroit Lions with their new fearsome mascot. Sorry, Motor City, but adding teeth to your lion and stripes to your uniform is not going to win football games.

Stafford is an SEC quarterback we are all used to seeing. He put on a show during the pro day put on by his university, but is he the real deal? A lot say he doesn’t show up for big games, throwing interceptions and making bad reads.

Many have the USC quarterback Mark Sanchez -- who spurned head coach Pete Carroll and decided to leave for the NFL -- on the rise. But USC didn’t win this season on the arm of their quarterback. It was the three long-haired linebackers, Rey Maualuga Clay Matthews and Brian Cushing, who all could be first-round picks, that the Trojans relied on.

There are no guarantees, but at the same time, an impact player could change a franchise for more than a decade. It is a guessing game. Some win and some lose.

Here are some of the drafts biggest busts:

1. Without a doubt, the biggest draft bust of all time is Ryan Leaf. OK, at least the Colts didn’t pass on Peyton Manning and make him the No. 1 pick. Leaf’s antics were classic, and he cost the Chargers a lot. All the while, Manning led Indianapolis to a championship.

2. As much as I hate to rip on Penn State running backs, Ki-Jana Carter is the worst of their busts. It really wasn’t his fault, though. He tore up his knee in his first preseason game as a rookie but managed to stick around for seven more years. However, he was the No. 1 pick, and it is safe to say the Bengals had bigger plans when they drafted him.

3. Nebraska’s option was a machine more than a decade ago, and Lawrence Phillips was probably the biggest name to come out of Lincoln. But now he is serving a 10-year sentence after driving his car into three teenagers. Can you say thug.

4. I was kind of disappointed when Andre Ware won the Heisman, becoming the first African-American quarterback to do so. I just couldn’t understand how someone I had never heard of won the biggest award in the college game when you had Notre Dame’s Tony Rice, Colorado’s Darian Hagan and West Virginia Major Harris, all African-American quarterbacks that I had heard of. Well, no one turned out to be that special, but Ware has the trophy and was the No. 6 pick.

5. Steve Emtman is why you should draft someone whose job is to handle the pigskin with the first pick.